equate to the solution. For the
Eleusinia are older than Eleusis,--older than Demeter, even the Demeter
of Thrace,--certainly as old as Isis, who was to Egypt what Demeter was
to Greece,--the Great Mother[2] of a thousand names, who also had _her_
endlessly repeated sorrow for the loss of Osiris, and in honor of whom
the Egyptians held an annual festival. Thus we only remove the mystery
back to the very verge of myth itself; and we must either give up the
solution or take a different course. But perhaps Isis will reveal
herself, and at the same time unveil the Mysteries. Let us read her
tablet: "I am all that, has been, all that is, all that is to be; and
the veil which is over my face no mortal hand hath ever raised!" Now,
reader, would it not be strange, if, in solving _her_ mystery, we should
also solve the Sphinx's riddle? But so it is. This is the Sphinx in her
eldest shape,--this Isis of a thousand names; and the answer to her
ever-recurring riddle is always the same. In the Human Spirit is
infolded whatsoever has been, is, or shall be; and mortality cannot
reveal it!

Not to Demeter, then, nor even to Isis, do the Eleusinia primarily
point, but to the human heart. We no longer look at them; henceforth
they are within us. Long has this mystic mother, the wonder of the
world, waited for the revelation of her face. Let us draw aside the
veil, (not by mortal hand,--it moves at your will,) and listen:--

"I am the First and the Last,--mother of gods and men. As deep as is my
mystery, so deep is my sorrow. For, lo! all generations are mine. But
the fairest fruit of my Holy Garden was plucked by my mortal children;
since which, Apollo among men and Artemis among women have raged with
their fearful arrows. My fairest children, whom I have brought forth and
nourished in the light, have been stolen by the children of darkness. By
the Flood they were taken; and I wandered forty days and forty nights
upon the waters, ere again I saw the face of the earth. Then, wherever I
went, I brought joy; at Cyprus the grasses sprang up beneath my feet,
the golden-filleted Horae crowned me with a wreath of gold and clothed me
in immortal robes. Then, also, was renewed my grief; for Adonis, whom I
had chosen, was slain in the chase and carried to Hades. Six months I
wept his loss, when he rose again and I triumphed. Thus in Egypt I
mourned for Osiris, for Atys in Phrygia, and for Proserpina at
Eleusis,--all of whom passed to the underwor